Right here. When a judge uses a conviction to send a political message about national security to the President of the United States – no one was served justice. Not the people, not the defendant – no one.

U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour said the successful prosecution of Ahmed Ressam should serve not only as a warning to terrorists, but as a statement to the Bush administration about its terrorism-fighting tactics.

“We did not need to use a secret military tribunal, detain the defendant indefinitely as an enemy combatant or deny the defendant the right to counsel,” he said Wednesday. “The message to the world from today’s sentencing is that our courts have not abandoned our commitment to the ideals that set our nation apart.”

He added that the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks have made Americans realize they are vulnerable to terrorism and that some believe “this threat renders our Constitution obsolete … If that view is allowed to prevail, the terrorists will have won.”

First off, impeach the idiot for using our laws to send political messages. Secondly, why do these opinionated jerks always see things as ‘either-or’. It is either military tribunals or our judicial system.

But one thing old rogue Judge Coughenour forgets is the failed attempts all through the 90’s to deal with terrorism as a legal matter gave us 9-11.

Is this fool, using the power he was bequeathed as a judge (dealing with a crime now 5.5 years old), really trying to tell us terrorists who are willing to die for their cause can be dissuaded with 22 year sentences???

Impeach him for being just plain dumb!

Michelle Malkin has a good roundup, as usual.